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BRUNELLESCHI 



BRUNELLESCHI 

A POEM 



BY 

JOHN GALEN HOWARD 

I' 



SAN FRANCISCO 

JOHN HOWELL 
1913 






COPYRIGHT, 191 3 
BY JOHN GALEN HOWARD 



^ JAN 24 1314 

©CI.A363SS3 
/Of)/ 



TO 

C. D. 

WELCOMER THE CORDIALEST 

CRITIC THE MOST SEARCHING 

FRIEND THE FAITHFULEST 

THIS IMAGINED FACE 



Within the sixty-nine years of Filippo Brunelleschi^s life, Italy 
passed from the Dark Ages to the Renaissance. More than three- 
quarters of a century before the great archite5l was born his most 
famous work, the cathedral dome of Santa Maria del Fiore, had 
been foreshadowed by Arnolfo di Cambio, the original architect 
of the building ; but though the cathedral had, by Brunelleschi 's 
time, been mostly finished otherwise, the vast oB agonal space over 
the crossing still remained without a roof, for lack of an architect 
with the skill and courage to formulate a plan and carry out the 
task. T'hese and other necessary qualities Brunelleschi alone pos- 
sessed. ASlual constru£iion was begun by him twenty-six years 
before his death, but he was fated to see completed only the main 
portion of the dome. 'The crowning lantern was finished in accord- 
ance with his design, years after he was gone, by Michelozzo, once 
(and always) his pupil, later his rival, and finally his successor. 

The aElion of the piece occupies one fine April day, a brief 
interval of vigor in Brunelleschi^ s last illness. The aged archi- 
tect, realizing that death is at hand, has determined upon a last 
visit to the dome. The first scene is at dawn, in Brunelleschi 's 
room at the top of his house in Florence, near the cathedral, which 
is to be seen through the open window. The second scene is at mid- 
day within and on the dome. The third scene is at sunset on the 
slopes of San Miniato overlooking Florence, with the dome in the 
middle distance. Throughout the piece Brunelleschi alone speaks. 



To climb the summit of the centuries 
And orb their life in skiey stone I 



BRUNELLESCHI 

Part I — Morning 

Time: April, 1446. Daybreak. 

Scene : An upper room, Florence. The Dome is seen beyond. 

Persons : Filippo Brunelleschi and his adopted 

son, Andrea. Brunelleschi speaks. 



A 



T LAST! — Now Dawn hath like a serpent sHpt 
Her shroud of murk oblivion and glides 
Fresh-panoplied with jewels forth from night ! 
Awake, Andrea ! For today once more, 
5 After these bedrid fEons, would my feet 
The sky-bound platform of my Dome achieved 
Enjoy. Upon this day will I go up 
Into that mountain for a last farewell ! 

Withdraw the hangings, that I well may see 
10 From this dim corner, framed with chambered gloom's 
Delicious flood of ambient morning air. 
My blossom-bubble of frail fabric sheen, 
Atingle with the day, still sweet with dew 
And rosy thro' dawn's pearl. More fully draw 



BRUNELLESCHI 

15 The grapy damask from the pouring rays 
Until its glinting dragons drown in dregs 
And these used eyes, antiqued with Roman wont, 
Joy in divine proportion. 

So! Such forms 

20 As I have builded should be ever seen — 
Unless it be beneath the frameless vault 
Of circumambient ensconcing skies — 
As now thro' arched oblongs exquisite. 

Perfection! 'Tis a beauty such, methinks, 

25 As none but he who made can utterly 
Delight in ! Ha ! Arnolfo, how would you 
Lift eyes in prayer could you but see this heaven 
I 've crowned your space withal ! Could you forgive. 
In jealousy for thine own striving hand, 

30 My bettering your best ? As well as I 

Forgive your crouching Atlas that his brawn 
Reeks not of fadture mine, each toiling stone 
Bone of my bone, and toil of my long toil. 
To hold my heavens up to Majesty! 

35 Vain for the God-in-us to crave the all — 
Not to derive, or flash like glinting beads 
On whirlwind skirts of cataradts of power. 
But in imperious oneness to ordain 

2 



MORNING 

And to suffice ! Vain, for at very best 

40 We wilful makers are but shreds and waifs 
Of urgent godhead, and our mightiest throes 
Of will creative are but gentlest breaths 
Out of almighty nostrils. Yet meseems — 
And thus I justify my headiness — 

45 God maketh best by human instruments. 
Thro' secondary aft of primal power. 
Nor seas nor mounts nor all His wheeling hosts 
Outweigh perchance the breath from poets' lips. 
Or radiance elusive of the light 

50 That quicks dead walls touched deathless by the brush ; 
How, then, with domes that span with winged stones. 
Wrought to live purpose by mere ad: of mind. 
Void space above Christ's holy shrine ? Naught greater 
God hath created than my blushing Dome, 

55 The virgin breast of Florence! There hath art 
Touched the high term of beauty. 'Tis of God, 
Solely of God. He thro' my tangled brain 
Conceived and did; nor thro' my brain alone 
But thro' the countless minds whose heritage 

60 Mine hath but garnered, and their teeming house 
Set now at last in order. Most of all 
From him ( high heart ) my fountains take their rise 
Who first laid down the pregnant odtagon, 

3 



BRUNELLESCHI 

And visioned it o'erswept and glorious 
6s With winged earth-stufF rapturously enskied. 

Timid that profile as it budded first 

Within his mind's of-God-impregnate womb? 

" Timid and paltry " were the words I used 

To hammer home a truth they would not heed, 

70 Those close maestri^ with their padlockt heads 
Nodding and knocking woodenly of rules 
And precedent, and of the high respedt 
Due to Arnolfo's sacred memory. 
But which is he who most respects the law — 

75 He whom the letter circumscribes and kills, 
Or he within whose soul law's soul strikes root, 
Bursting the bonds of its enjailing shell 
To amplify forever? Words I used 
In heat to clench a white-hot argument 

80 I used with purpose underneath my heat. 

With cold and tempered purpose, for those words- 
Those hateful words — applied not to the thought 
Arnolfo sowed, a seed of the sublime. 
But to the minds that saw sublimity 

85 Curtailed and wingless, and were satisfied. 
I spake Arnolfo, and my words drove home. 
I markt the wincing eyelash and the flinch 

4 



MORNING 

Of the touched raw ; and " Florence with a dome 
Timid and paltry ! Inconceivable 
90 And not to be endured!" they each and all 
Trod toe on heel in protest. 

So my point 
And the first glory of the Dome were won. 
For 'tis alone by that uplifting wall 
95 The form voluptuous above gets wings 
For soaring free to empyreal power. 
So is Arnolfo's thought empedestaled, 
Rapt from closed budhood and out-flowered in joy 
Amid the blue, unhampered unaware, 

100 Its will achieved, its yearning in repose. 
'Tis so forever in the life of thought; 
Expression goes not home, knows not its ends, 
If it be not detacht, distinguisht, throned, 
Set high apart and sacredly enshrined. 

105 'Twas so our Florentine his Comedy 

Put at awe's distance by the awsome form 
Wherewith he clothed his vision's universe. 
And, by removing, brought his vision home, 
A universal knock at each heart's door. 

110 Only a few can cluster round a spring 
Hid among sedges secretly and shy ; 
But hang its gauzy gladness o'er the cliff 

5 



BRUNELLESCHI 

And each who looks may mark it for his own. 
Lift thou thy thought into the upper air 
1 1 5 If thou wouldst speak beyond the reach of death ! 

So bloomed Arnolfo's buddings at my hands. 
Him hail I grandsire; thro' these clogging veins 
Still riot gladsome drops I owe to him. 
When I but think upon him. 'Twas a man, 

120 God's image manned with God's first attribute — 
The potent will creative — that conceived 
Yon form of loveliness, and dared its plan. 
From him most I derive, and have a pride 
To flow from such a source; 'tis but the mood 

125 That marks me maker when I jealous am 

Of aught that seems to minish mine own strength 
Or to condition its forth-putting. Now, 
When my last journey I must soon take up 
(Who knoweth to what bourn?) and all alone, 

1 30 As never yet I journeyed, let these words, 
As if they were my latest breath, sink deep 
Into thy heart of hearts, beloved son — 
Heart of my heart, tho' wanting blood of mine — 
More closer for my loving, not my lust. 

135 I, whom my Florence placeth up, alone, 
At last after these fifty years of fight, 

6 



MORNING 

Owe all I am to my progenitors, 

Not of the flesh alone — nay, surely — but 

To those now nameless dead whose godlike stuff 

140 Of the imagination ever fed 

And feeds my inmost being. He who gave 
His gift in but a breath of living thought — 
Caught from the whisper of a passing Power, 
Misunderstood or haply misapplied, 

145 But quick — hath given that without which I 
Had languisht or gone down. In reverence 
For the unending sacred stream of life 
Which is but God, I pass my portion on 
To him who follows after. May my thought 

1 50 Be fruitful and increase in many minds 
Yet to be born in lands beyond my ken. 
Haply there shall arise on crest of time 
Some spirit — nay, some spirits — packt with power. 
Who, building on my thought, shall raise up piles 

155 More mighty than my mightiest, yet give 
To me the guerdon of their deeds divine. 
So is my meed most his who went before. 

Ev'n as I speak, see how the April sun. 
Fresh from his dip in nightly Lethe, springs 
160 Fleet-footed from the hills, his earliest glance 

7 



BRUNELLESCHI 

Kindling the snowy topping of the Dome, 
Unfinisht yet and webbed with scantling gold 
That, lacelike, masks the inward loveliness. 
Now slide the rays adown the swelling mound — 

165 A lover's touch that swift with young desire 
Caresses and compels voluptuous form. 
From out the dusk of dawning, sweet emerge 
Chaste raptures of pale marble, veining soft 
The roseleaf-luscious languor of that hill 

170 All virginal. And now the eager light 
Hath like a lover swept the immaculate 
And taken all . . . as Christ, our light of lights 
And days' eternal day, would sweep to Him 
The budding ripeness of His mystic bride. 

175 'T is time I left this palsied pallet. Now, 
And for the last time — oh! I feel it snap 
My fragile heart-strings — shall I mount that height 
Whereto my life hath been pledged utterly. 
No more with pride imperial shall I set 

1 80 These feet upon the rung to the sky's gates. 
Nor o'er these lips may ever burst again 
The voice of fiat ; but a suppliant. 
Kneeling the steps of Christward penitence, 
I will up-crawl, a worm before the Throne. 

8 



MORNING 

185 Even to rise from this strait couch I need 
Thy arm, Andrea; and thy fiHal word— 
'Tis strange how deep its sound doth penetrate 
And how it easeth me. When I am gone 
'Tis thou I would have make my monument; 

190 'Tis so perchance thou hast a chance to live. 
Nay, be not vext; we be no flatterers, 
To scum salt hearts with sweetness, thou and I. 
What I to thee, say thou unto the world ; 
What I of thee, say thou of me abroad, 

195 Nor paint me beauteous; but as thou hast seen, 
So show me forth. It is one half my pride 
That I have won, being but what I am, 
A pint-pot scrub, so full of cranky whims 
And desperate abridgments that all maids 

200 Have said me nay, till, in the lapse of time. 
My heart hath turned unto the like of thee. 
And made me father all vagaries thine. 
It were quaint justice, shouldst thou live thro' me 
In thy presentment, since thou lack'st my blood 

205 Yet call'st me father. Make my monument ! 

And while thou help'st me to put on these stuffs 
More joyous for the sackcloth of my soul 
(Which men must spy not) I'll beguile the hour 

9 



BRUNELLESCHI 

With memories; for I have never told 
2IO Even to thee one half the struggles deep 

Wherethro' I 've waded to this shore of years. 

Nor shall I novv^, nor could I ; yet, in part. 

Since thou must make me live when I am dead, 

'Tis fitting thou shouldst glimpse my battle-field 
215 Before we knew ourselves as son and sire 

In the calm evening of my agony. 

That smoothed the pathways of thy morning life. 

Thou know'st my model for Lorenzo's doors; 
Thou know'st my model for yon soaring Dome; 

220 Betwixt those two there yawned a score of years 
Empty of all achievement visible 
But packt with gnawing hell. I knew my power. 
For it was very I — I breathed and drank. 
Waked, slept and lived it. In my deepest soul 

225 There was no cranny but was crank with it. 
And in my mind imagination still 
And sleeplessly did live with gaping space 
O'ercrowned and perfeded. An instind: 'twas, 
More not-to-be-denied than roused lust — 

230 A lust indeed instindive and more hot. 
More exigent, than fleshly longings — that 
With a consuming summons called me on 

10 



MORNING 

To close vast spaces in. 'Twas born in me 
As hunger in all creatures, nor less fierce. 

235 But I recall, as men recall first love. 

The hour when first in fire from out the blue 
The bolt of conscious will to live or die 
For that desire — to make it good — smote thro' 
To gushing springs of being. 

240 But a lad, 

A mean, frail shred of boyhood, was I then — 
Ten years or suchlike. All the town was mad 
With joy and with acclaim that Giotto's tower. 
That half a century was building, was topt out. 

245 And I, with other urchins, half a score — 
Lorenzo one of them of course — slipt by 
The jealous wardens and made holiday 
All up the dizzy wonder to the roof. 
Once there, the keeper panting in pursuit, 

250 We rompt around the hanging parapet 

In shrillest glee, with taunts scarce circumspedl 

For him who followed fast; till finally 

He herded all save but Lorenzo's self 

And me down thro' the scuttle. We escaped 

255 That ignominy by a sudden dodge 

And found ourselves alone in the pale blue. 



I I 



BRUNELLESCHI 

We both had kindled with the kindled town, 
And in our hearts there throbbed a riot joy 
That Giotto's genius now was culminate 

260 Full two score years since he was in his grave. 
The people's exaltation scarce was less 
Than when not long ago we capt the Dome ; 
And we small slips of callow artistry 
Were fired with sense of genius. Scarcely friends 

265 Were we, even as children — too unlike 
Our natures were to coalesce in love; 
But we were friendly till that tower-top hour. 
There our ways parted. And they never since 
Have met but they have crost. 

270 From that great height 

We lookt together o'er the bristling town, 
Sawed with the holds of lordlings, and in pride 
Each told upon his fingers each proud house 
He held allegiance unto. Hardly once 

27; My score agreed with his. My friends and his 
Might have inhabited two separate worlds. 
So far apart our standards and our kin. ^ 
Boys take these things more seriously than men. 
Even in Florence, and incipient heat 

280 Burned in each reddening cheek, despisal's flag. 
It was when we had warmed to boast and taunt, 

I 2 



MORNING 

Boy-fashion, that we wheeled and o'er the church 
Alongside bent our downward gaze. At odds 
In family allegiance, more at odds 

285 We were, and came to fisticuffs, thereon. 

To me the yawning chasm, that markt the dome 

Arnolfo had imagined, was a lure, 

A challenge, a delight ; to him a snare, 

A fearsome bungle — worse, disaster sure, 

290 If it indeed with stone must be o'erspanned. 
Then sprang my "fate to saddle and I cried, 
"'Tis cowardice to drivel such a lie! 
Think you Arnolfo knew not what he did 
When he foresaw that gaping hole? I know 

295 It can be vaulted, and I'll do it, too! " 

'Twas sixty years ago, well nigh; yet now 
I still can feel my cheek grow hot and cold 
With that unreasoned and divine control 
Which hath sustained me ever, but first then 

300 Made manifest my business. 'Twas Christ's will 
That I should heal that emptiness! And when. 
In after time, the years dragged on and on. 
Defeat succeeding failure, and naught moved 
That cumbersome machine the Opera — 

305 Or, moved, they did but jangle their minds' chains, 

13 



BRUNELLESCHI 

Creakt dry old catchless cogs, and spat out dust- 
I oft have cast me on my bended knees 
And sought new guidance; and as oft His hand 
Have felt uplift me till my doubt was done. 

310 But this was later — boys have little care 
But that their wills will carry; as for me, 
As boy I never doubted. My first doubt 
Came at same hand as my first certainty — 
Lorenzo's — but not doubt anent the Dome, 

315 Nor doubt so much about myself as him. 
When he and I lockt horns over the bronze 
That was to seal the doorless baptistry. 
Then first I saw him as a power. Till then. 
All thro' our prentice days, I 'd thought of him 

320 As but a plodding potterer, a fond 
And fearful searcher-out of vanities 
Who never knew his mind, and took the world 
Into his confidence to fix him one. 
But when the models for the gates were shown, 

325 Our two — Lorenzo's and my own — stood out 
Together, peers incomparable; so 
The town and all did say. And some inclined, 
And not a few, to mine. But in my heart 
I knew that his was finer, and with pain 

14 



MORNING 

330 I marveled wherefore. How could such a mind. 
So feeble in conception, indiredl. 
And blown about by every gust that came. 
Produce a thing so exquisite? It balkt 
My being. And 'twas from that hour I knew 

335 Not force can work the marvel but the long 
Inveterate travail of the soul. I saw 
My Abraham a pattern of myself— 
Hot to the deed, e'en odious. Odious thought. 
To minds like mine, that they must clip will's wings 

340 To plod in patience the long paths to power. 
And know the bloody scourging of defeat. 
Ere they may make the mile-stone of success. 
That price for one thing gladly would I pay; 
The Dome, my idol, that I'd buy with life! 

345 But when the masters offered half the task 
Of the contested bronzes to myself 
To work at with Lorenzo I refused, 
Too filled with loathing for his niggling ways. 
Too filled with awe at his divine result. 

350 "His is the best; give it to him!" I said. 
"He is a sculptor; I an archited:!" 
This I had added, but piy soul was sore 
With its first search by doubt and questioning. 



15 



BRUNELLESCHI 

I was a boy then still — oh, twenty -four, 

3 55 But tardy riping. Architedts take time. 
And I was yet to strive a score of years 
Ere I was let put shoulder to the task 
I lived but to accomplish. Had I known. 
My patience might have flagged ; but eager hope 

360 Shone gorgeous from my fog of doubt; I knew. 
Better for my defeat, the only road 
For me to viftory. An archited: 
Essential to the core was I, as sure 
As was Ghiberti sculptor; nay, as sure 

365 As Donatello was so, even then, 

In careless ladhood, recognized and loved 
As such by me and cherisht; and as sure 
As was my dear Masaccio painter, then — 
Nay, on that instant, mayhap — being born, 

370 So soon to flame to genius most divine, 
A beauteous meteor in our morning skies. 
So soon to sink and vanish ere the day. 
Far sowing sky-seed. 

Donatello then — 

375 As much chagrined, more than as much elate, 
As I at the strife's ending, for his model gained. 
For such a child, proud praise — struck palm to palm 
With me, his elder by a half, that we would go 

16 



MORNING 

And seek art's fountain-head together. Word 
380 Came down the wind, from none knows whence. 

That the old ways were wanting. All the air 

Was rife with spirit not to be defined 

As of new dawn upon the bleakness past. 

And we, in whom the very heart of spring 
385 Leapt riotous with promise, strapt our packs 

And made off madly down the lane to Rome. 

Scarce we lookt back, or if our eyes reglimpsed 

The ancient cindiure with its pride of towers — 

This withed fagot buncht with beetling threat — 
390 'Twas not with wish to linger, but as one 

Who from a loved and longed-for mistress goes 

To hazard fortune for her — sooner gone 

The sooner come again — nor lets his love 

Slacken his pace wide-worldwards. 
39; What to gain 

Had we in mind up-treasured? Scarce we knew. 

We but obeyed an instindt sharp as fate 

That prickt us onward to an unknown goal. 

Youth, and the restless anguish of defeat, 
400 The sense of boundless spaces and of power 

Unmeasured and immeasurable, life, 

Love, faith, and God — these filled our consciousness. 

Rough was the way; our purse made Friday-fare; 

17 



BRUNELLESCHI 

Our packs tho' slender were too sore a load 
405 ( We wisht our packs and purses might exchange ) ; 
Yet we were joyous as two larks in spring 
Loosed to the boundless ether, and our song 
Piped heartfelt from high blue of times to be. 
So hastened we, scarce witting, on to Rome. 

410 And Rome repaid! Arnolfo was my sire. 
But Rome the milky dam that gave me suck. 
And Donatello — oh, the rapture keen 
To watch him blossom in that garth of eld ! 
A downy velvet barely duskt his lip — 

415 His hand, it was already man's; his mind 
A forthright god's, creative; and his soul 
Flower-sweetly childlike, as it still is so. 
We lived as one. No nuptial bonds more close 
Could wed two natures than our friendship bound 

420 His heart and mine. We held each other's soul. 
No deeps, no backs or eddies of our lives 
Kept we o'er-glozed from each other's view. 
And as the years went on he kept me young, 
Then and thereafter; my imprisoned soul, 

425 Denied expression's vent, had grizzled else 
And packt to crabbed hardness, impotent 
To wield the power itself conceived and was. 

18 



MORNING 

Love can no more than keep the channels free 
Wherethro' may Hfe tumultuous pour its flood. 

430 And I — not Donatello only but 

All Rome was mine, and all the boundless world 
That was Rome. Of the heady cup of time, 
Ripened within her deep-delved vaults, I drank 
Deep and divinely till my soul was filled. 

435 Wherever crumbling fragment broke the sod 
In desert purlieus of the shrunken town 
I grubbed and prodded with a fevered zeal 
To have its secrets, as a dog will dig 
To lay his fangs upon a cherisht bone 

440 Stored ripe in burial. Little scaped my flair; 
Tho' oft — as if a ghoul who sought in graves 
Unholy treasure — I was driven forth 
With harsh reviling ; but as oft returned, 
Until, with endless work, enormous store 

445 Of measured pelf I had laid by — rich stuff 
Wherewith I builded up anew in mind 
August antiquity. 

How 'twas I lived. 
Those roofless winters long, I hardly know, 

450 So distanced are they and so blued with life. 
My patrimony of a piece of land 

19 



BRUNELLESCHI 

I'd sold when first I went from Florence — all 
That I possessed save meager scraps of wage 
I got from tasks that famine found at hand 

455 To tide me over from one hungry spell 
Until the next. Empty I workt for wage, 
And filled I workt for glory, giving all. 
All of my best, to living with the forms. 
In crumbling and dishonored fragments hoar, 

460 That clothed the ancient world, and glorified 
Its all existence. 

Oft when evening fell 
And the encircling hills were aureoled 
With sunset's flame, imperially clad 

465 In purple from the deepening west, I walkt 
In the dim dingle where the Forum lay 
Already dipt in gloom as if its dreams 
Of other days had brimmed it with a draft 
Of bitter-sweetness. Round me cattle browsed 

470 And silence was, where once the Cssars sate 
The throne of earth, amid the clang of arms 
And babble of unnumbered multitudes, 
Prankt with all gorgeousness from all the ends 
Of prostrate empire. From the sweeping turf, 

475 From tufted copses, rose into the dusk 

Vast ghostly columns — giants, half their height 

20 



MORNING 

Awful up-turreting, who stationed there 
Consoleless, as unsaviored patriarchs 
Kept state, imprisoned yet in Hmbo, ere 

480 With love divine Christ stoopt to lift them out 
Who else were pinioned there eternally. 
Nor dead nor living, yet both dead and live. 
And in the eerie gloaming I could deem 
Those mighty forms out-raised to me their hands, 

485 Mute supplicants for my compassion. "We," 

I mused them yearning, " are not blotcht with slime 
That cankered empire; wherefore be we doomed 
To stay discarded? Lift us to the light. 
Our souls are heirs of beauty's golden prime, 

490 And we bear message of that time serene 
To future ages. List thou to our word 
And speak it for us to the world. It waits!" 

Like the rich wreckage of a treasure-fleet 
Engulft beneath the ravening seas of time 

495 With but the mastheads wind-bleacht, I divined 
The wealth that lay corroding in sunk holds. 
An age's ransom ; and I set me on 
More wilful to redeem to daily use 
The wasting beauty. But of all the vast 

500 Innumerably thronging vestiges 

2 1 



BRUNELLESCHI 

Of ancient grandeur, two most filled my soul 
With wonder and my mind with endless zeal 
To have their hearts' whole secret out, and mine. 
As never elsewhere, surely, 'tis within 

505 The Amphitheater's o'erwhelming sweep 
Conception grasps the miracle of Rome. 
Within its awsome valley, walled about 
By mountain ledges shelving to the blue, 
Chaliced all empire. Whiles, at burning noon, 

510 I sought the umbrage of the corridors 
Which circle endlessly that vast ellipse 
To scape the oppressive awe that reigned and smote 
Within the roofless cindture, as old wine 
Had sod all conscience with cupt day, until, 

515 In anguish of sun-drunkenness, I fled 

To vaulted twilight. Thence again, from dreams 
Of glorious eld, refresht would I come forth 
To witness Evening at her altar rites. 
Coping the chalice with a filmy pall 

520 Of gentian shadow like a brooding wing. 
And whilom, when from out the mystic bowl 
Brimmed with the purple sacrament of night 
My mind had drunk oblivion, would my soul 
Espouse in dreams the soul of ancientry. 

525 'Tis from those spousals' sacred unison 

22 



MORNING 

Have sprung these children fresh wherewith is sown 
By us our Florence. Mother of our seed. 
The Theater hath stood for worldly power 
In spirit beauty, and hath vased the Word 
530 That Rome too was a vessel of the shrine, 
Whence after-time shall taste the sacrament. 

Rome's sacred grandeur most the Theater, 

But most Rome's unity the Pantheon 

Symbols. Eternity ! None other form 
535 Of human handiwork so speaks that thought 

With the unendedness that rounds it ! Rome ! 

None other thought so keeps her puissance 

As doth Eternity! One only creature 

Of the almighty Mind, the ends of earth 
540 Together all were gathered up within 

One fascicle of governance, that there. 

More certain of fruition, might be sown. 

And endlessly disseminated, seed 

Of life eternal. Prescient of its fate 
545 As emblem of the empire, both of man 

And of essential Wisdom, pagan priests 

Did sandtify that temple to gods seven 

Who o'er their darkness shed foreshadowing gleams 

Of very God — to Time, to Power, to Swiftness, 

23 



BRUNELLESCHI 

550 Beauty, and Chastity, and, prince of these. 
Love, and the Sword that Love is girt withal. 
And so it stands epitome of Christ 
And of His Church, in chaste perfediion framed 
And rounded into one with endless things. 

555 Crumbled, without, and craggy from the storms 
Of wasting winters and the ruthless hand 
Of spoilers, scarce the eye discerns at first 
A fearsome beauty, tho' the gracious porch 
Prepares and wins one on to enter straight. 

560 But like a saintly nature, cloistered close 

'Neath sackcloth and a front of haggard want, 
The spirit harbors there within, safe-shrined. 
Sweet, and abundant. Swiftly, from the port. 
Or ere the ponderous bronze hath clanged behind, 

565 The entrant halts, with awe confounded. . . . God ! 
This is Thy House ! . . . A cavern splendid, vast, 
Aflood with golden mellowness of gloom, 
Clothed with all sumptuous substance of the earth ! 
Around, no window breaks the stately file 

570 Of niche and column, columned niche and wall; 
But from above alone there swims the day, 
A cirque of plumbless ether, thro' the dome 
In benedidion, like the eye of God 
That looks serenely to the heart of things. 

24 



MORNING 

575 Oft have I seen a sheaf of streaming rays 

Pour thro' that sky-space from its fount unseen 
And down the coffered facets of the vault 
Strike seals of flaming gold as if the hand 
Of the Almighty had reacht down and touched 

;8o To liquid life of fire the senseless stone, 
Senseless no longer, but a sentient soul 
Wrought inly. 

There it was I gathered up. 
To treasure in my inmost being, funds 

585 Of inspiration and of reverence 

I else had wanted for the mighty task 
My mind made headway unto. Deep I searcht 
Into its secret making. How, and why. 
And in what sequence were the elements 

590 That made that greatness, wrought by feeble hands 
To power and beauty ? If I gloated long 
To find the chaste proportions of an arch 
Or fix the spirit beauty of a shaft — 
Just so much lengthened, so much viewless curve, 

595 So burgeoned upward for the final grace — 

How more, bethink thee, was I rapt and pledged 
To master mastery in the mighty dome 1 

To build more beautiful was not for man ; 

25 



BRUNELLESCHI 

But might I reach its beauty? Not for me 
600 The answer to that question. 'T was perchance 
A form less noble that I had to deal 
Withal — for must the circle stand alone 
As form of full perfection. And perchance 
Some freer hand, less loyal to the scheme 
605 Already sanctioned and imbedded deep 
In fundamental feeling, had devised 
Some fresh transition to the perfeCt form. 
I know not; for my mind was fixed fast 
On the solution of the hardy task 
610 Arnolfo set. Its hardness made its charm 

More subtle and more potent. And the end — 
See! it is beautiful — and all my best 
Have I poured out, thro' all, thro' all my life 
To make it so. I will not question it ! 

615 But oh, the length of travail to that end; 

To but the putting shoulder to the work; 

To but the privilege to show my plan; 

To but the right to speak before the Board; 

To but the basis whereon I might speak; 
620 To but the power to make that basis sure ! 

'Twas into that abyss the years still poured 

The while I naught produced that might have lived 

26 



MORNING 

Had I been taken off— nothing that lasts 
Save friends and loving pupils. Caesar so 

625 Saw life pass by and leave him in the shade, 
Whilst others pluckt their fruit and ate of it. 
Men who are masterful beyond the bounds 
Of their small epochs aye must wait till Time 
Hath given the glass the allotted turnings slow 

630 Ere to their stage the entrance-ways are cleared. 
But meanwhile, thinkest theirs a grateful task. 
To wait and watch the train of life go by 
And eat their hearts out for the chance to live ? 
I saw Lorenzo swim the cresting wave 

635 Of sunshine and success, and many more 
Less gifted win a worthy place — just claims 
Put forth to honor's lasting name — while I, 
Conscious of greatness, kept the shadowy wings 
And dull despised background of the scene. 

640 Those were the years my heart had aged and tired, 

Along with cooling blood and grizzling hairs, 

Had I not felt me richly blossoming 

In Donatello and Masaccio. 

They spoke my message in the countless ways 
645 The finger cannot follow, pouring forth 

A freshening flood of thought not theirs the less 

27 



BRUNELLESCHI 

For being pregnant with my spirit, ripe 
With a sane wisdom that had ne'er obtained 
In their unreasoned and impulsive power 

650 Elsewise. Their essence was eternal youth 
That knows no trammels and no even pace. 
I steadied their swift hands. I trimmed their sails 
In dangerous flaws. Well — I, Filippo, played 
Lorenzo's role to their Filippo's ! See ? 

655 I kept them careful, for the vital sap 
They kept alert in me. 

Supple — and sweet, 
I hope, a little — those two kept my heart 
By their large understanding and rich power 

660 Of swift sure sympathy that glimpsed an end. 
No sooner shadowed by my first essay. 
They trailed my mind-ways by their insight keen. 
Their live encouragement establisht rock 
Under frail fancy's outworks, till defense 

665 Took shape aggressive of fixt purposes 

That lookt cock-sure unyieldingness — no more — 
To minds that gallopt up, and oflF. They say 
I'm set, that nothing budges me; nor guess 
How I have lived but by encouragement — 

670 I cannot breathe else. But the type of mind 
Far alienate from mine, which little brings 

28 



MORNING 

To stir my consciousness, which Httle pricks 
The spur of my presentment, I oppose 
With stoHd fixedness. And then some say 

67s That I am wilful and contrarious. 

Will were not will were it not wilful ! Will 
Were needful to a waiting task, and mine 
Hath mostly been but waiting. 

But enough 

680 Of such philosophy! 'Twas back and forth 

Thro' twenty arduous years, 'twixt schoolmate Rome 
And mistress Florence, ere the dangling prize 
Plumpt in my pocket, and e'en yet with thorns 
Thereto that kept it unenjoyable. 

685 Lorenzo, yoked with me in equal power — 
A doomed duumvirate! In earlier days 
I had refused to weight him with my hand 
Upon his shoulder whilst he made his gates. 
I knew the folly of such harnessing, 

690 And while it galled me gave him liberal rein 
To win his laurels. Now my score of years 
Must go to feed his emptiness. 

No more 
Knew he of building than his potter's clay. 

695 He had been taskt at the minutest things — 
Gates, glass, and gildings for the altar-top; 

29 



BRUNELLESCHI 

And ne'er his eye had scanned a broader space 
Than his two hands ; or, if it scanned, with fear. 
Ah! but he'd had the wisdom sane-insane 

700 To join the Guild of Builders — to what end 

Requires more wisdom than I've gleaned to guess; 
For I think he intrigued not for the Dome — 
He feared it, rather. But he'd not the grace — 
When, as Filippo's opposite and so 

705 The one most like to chasten, he was drawn 
To yoke-up with me — flatly to refuse. 
As decency required. A useless pall 
Of lead hung on me was he from the first ; 
And had it not been like the great refusal 

710 To cast aside the task that heaven had set. 
And peevishly to mope because full sway 
I could not have, I should have said them nay. 
" Or he or I ; not both ! " But for that he 
Was useless, and well knew him so, and that 

715 1 knew that canny time would show it out, 
I took what I could get, one half the laud 
And twice the task — to count his presence there 
At least the burthen of the task itself! 
So we were off^ at last. 

720 But now let's off 

And scale my mountain wonder ! Once again 

30 



MORNING 

Ere they cease breathing, glad these nostrils mine 
Shall scent the azure gardens of the sky 
From that high hollow hill, my bloom of blooms- 
725 The wonder-blossom of this town of flowers — 
Fairest corolla of this flower of towns ! 



31 



BRUNELLESCHI 

Part II — Noon 

Time: The same. Midday. 
Scene : Within and on the Dome of Santa Maria del Fiore. 
Persons: Brunelleschi and Andrea; and later Donatello 
and the workmen on the Dome. Brunelleschi speaks. 



L 



LS DONATELLO there? I count on him 
To give a note of gala to this last 
Brief junket to the clouds. Astonishing 

730 How he keeps up that spirit ! To be sure 

He hath but three score spring-tides to his name, 
And that 's still April if the wind is right 
(And you are Donatello) e'en suppose 
You have two hearts, and one of them mine own, 

735 To wean from winter! April sure '11 be May, 
With him along — not even last good-byes 
Could hold out showery 'gainst that sunniness. 
On, then! Belike we'll find him at the top. 
Where suns belong. Not earth could keep him down. 

740 He floats upon the world like buoyant gold 
On quicksilver. 

33 



BRUNELLESCHI 

How steep these steps, to feet 
With loads less light, prickt on by will so e'er 
To win the azure ! Three score years and nine 

745 Had never ventured to essay them, but 

That two score planned them, and that three score's gone 
Already to their summit, blithe as morn. 
Yet nor so endless many nor so steep 
As steps impalpable I clomb of yore 

75° To give these day! I've earned them, and I've paid 
High value for their steepness, o'er and o'er 
Redoing in the undoing dark the deed 
Each day had ended. 

Let me catch my breath, 

755 Ere we climb on, behind this parapet. 

Again I shall not see thee, Florence, lie 

In languid loveliness beneath, thy towers 

Reversing in perspedlive, vanisht down 

And reaching earthwards, where I soon shall lie. 

760 How I have loved thee ! Me no nuptial joys 

Have weaned from oneness with thy spirit's flower. 
Out-blossomed from my bosom. Only thee 
My heart hath yearned unto. Only thee 
My soul hath known in rapture. Only thee! 

765 Take thou this child that hath been born of us 

34 



NOON 

In spirit spousals, and upon thy breast 
Bear it forever as my pledge of troth 
In Heaven. All my being be up-caught 
And mystic-corporate therein with thine, 
770 A thing eternal, and forever thou ! 

And now the Stygian narrows of the stair 
Pent sidewise upward 'twixt the double vault, 
O'erarcht and buttressed round and overthwart! 
A breathing at each peep-hole — mind you that! 
775 Ha! Glimpse by glimpse we'll sum our Florence up, 
Minutest miniatures of beauty all. 

First, over there's Palazzo Vecchio, 
The hoar old war-horse, armored cap-a-pie 
And shadowy-visored, thrusting high his fist 
780 Fierce-clencht and mailed, ready for the blow. 

And now Or San Michele, in surprise. 

Lifts eyebrows o'er all shoulders round about. 

As who should watch, what tho' the neighbors drowse. 

Then there's sweet Arno, lady lakelet slim, 
785 Aslipping 'neath her bridges thro' the town 
As sleek as satin with her silvery smile. 

35 



BRUNELLESCHI 

And here we have a band of citizens — 
Sky-lofty turrets — sullenly athreat. 
Each scowling at the other. Still is War 
790 Our patron spirit tho' o'erwreathed with flowers. 

But stay ! Our fateful Chain ! I nearly bruised 
My head against your elbows, my good friend. 
A trifle rude to punch your papa so! 
'Twas I that fathered you — remember well! 

795 And what a botch Lorenzo made when he 
Pretended he knew all there was to know 
Of such as chains ! We should have had our Dome 
About our heads if he had had his way. 
Oh, wondrous days that dropt a farthing dip 

800 Into the bushel-basket of the Board ! 
I didn't have to make believe sick, as. 
In dudgeon, some of them made out I did. 
I was beyond endurance sick of him, 
Lorenzo, and of seeing him about 

805 And looking wise and careful and as if 
It all depended on him, when the most 
He ever ventured was to hem and haw 
When I was by, and then to put a spoke 
In every wheel behind my back. Why can't 

810 A man know what he's fit for? He can make, 

36 



NOON 

If there 's but time, a marvel of a door. 
I 'm free to say the one he's making now 
(And has been making since I can recall) 
Will far outdo the best was ever cast 

815 If he but keep it up. But as for domes — 

Well, domes are not his art, and mine they are. 
He wouldn't utter word when I was ill. 
He was so frightened — let the time drag on, 
With nothing building, till the men were wild 

8zo To get ahead and the whole town was dazed 
To see the work stop short, and all the crew 
Idle and boozing round the place. You see 
The work had reacht a stage most critical. 
The overhanging, inward, of the stone 

825 Was now so great the men all feared to work 
(No wonder, too) unless a scaffolding 
And hoardings were set up. And then again 
The binding-chain to keep the upper works. 
Once built, from thrusting out in vast collapse 

830 Must now be placed. A subtle problem each. 

When once I got about again I saw 

The time had come for adtion. All the town 

Was rife with rumors most discreditable. 

The Dome was doomed — nay, damned. The very men 

37 



BRUNELLESCHI 

83s On whom I most depended were at point 
Of mutiny, infed: with panic fear 
Even to mount the works — reflection sure 
Of poor Lorenzo's feebleness. Rule men 
By vacillation? Never! Certainty — 

840 That is your cue for masters. But be sure 
Your certainty is safe — else failure sure! 
Not needful best, but good — the chance to prove 
What's best will come only when all is done. 
The thing already judged as right. Not art 

845 1 'm speaking of, but adtion. Adtion then. 
Not art, was needful. And I adted soon. 
" You see," I said, " the folly of two men 
As masters of one task. Nor he nor I 
Is master while we both are so. Divide 

850 The work. There are two tasks at hand. Give him 
His choice." 

Lorenzo-like he chose the chain — 
And lucky 'twas. The scafibld was the road 
To instant credit and to confidence, 

855 Tho' but the moment's makeshift; while the chain 
Scarce mattered for the nonce, tho' pregnant 'twas 
With future fate for good or ill — a dome 
Or a disaster. 

Half an hour's enough 

38 



NOON 

860 (When you have travailed half a life before 

To meet that half-hour) to show forth a scheme. 
And match with manhood. Scarcely that, it was. 
Before my men were eager to begin. 
So simple and so safe my method was, 

865 So entertaining in its childlikeness. 

Like most big things. And while Lorenzo sweat 
About one foolish lap of chain, we slung 
Our scaffold quite around, a perfedt trough 
To work in. 

870 But the chain? The Dome hung now 

'Twixt heaven and earth — 'twixt fortune and the grave- 
And I was taskless, all my men dismissed. 
Waiting until Lorenzo's work was done. 
You see the situation. I must be 

875 Called in, advised with; and on such a thing 
As he had botcht but one report could make — 
'Twas worthless. Easy as I might I was 
On old Lorenzo; easy could not be. 
He was a good man in the wrongest place. 

880 I set him down as lightly as I could — 
To his relief, I'm sure. Tho' he took care 
To draw his stipend for a year or so 
His ghost was laid. No more he haunted me. 



39 



BRUNELLESCHI 

And big he showed — most unexpected big — 
885 When later on he let me lend a hand 
At casting his great bronzes; ne'er a word 
To sting regret within me to remorse. 
Take thou not queer Lorenzo for a cad; 
He's good-sort human, inwardly — deep in! 

890 One other battle royal must I win 

Ere the Dome reacht its zenith. Some my men, 
Pampered with adulation by the crowd 
( For now the Dome so marcht they thought themselves, 
And were thought of as heroes on the pave— 

89s Lordly aristocrats of labor), some 

Began to say, " The Dome is ours. We hold 
In our right hands its making. Not again, 
Should we drop out, could they our places fill. 
And not again, when this is finisht, we 

900 Shall chance upon its like, for livelihood. 
Who locketh not his larder soon shall lack. 
Let us but smite now while the iron is hot 
And reap our harvest!" Mingled metaphors 
That matcht their logic lame! I felt the storm 

905 In the close sullen weather of their look 
When for the ordering of the hourly task 
I voiced my will; tho' I no notice took 

40 



NOON 

Lest the storm break — perchance it might blow o'er. 
But naught save thunder eases thunder-heads; 
910 So they played Jove a while, and thundered sore. 

But architefture is not solitaire. 

The Dome was not my making, nor was't theirs. 

It was the town's. And deep in principle 

I saw their claims a menace, even tho' 

915 The letter of their law seem righteous. 

There ! 
Thro' this last loophole ere we gain the top, 
See you the lift serene of Giotto's tower? 
'Twas there I poised my purpose. Oft and oft, 

920 When the crowd crampt me and I needed air 
Of solitude to breathe me to myself, 
I climbed the lonely terrace of the tower 
To see things whole, unfrittered by detail. 
As one might pray upon a mountain-top. 

925 First, as a child, I there had glimpsed the Dome 
Achieved — me dedicate to its achievement. 
Fateful perspective! So I gained a force 
Of singleness and wholeness always there 
On the sky-platform. So it stands to me 

930 Supreme in purpose — loftiest poise of power. 
And fairest marriage of the earth with heaven 

41 



BRUNELLESCHI 

Man's hand hath coupled, as 'twere hand of God's, 
An hour in skydom cleansed my turbid mind 
That it pellucid ran and forceful. Straight 

935 Across the interval 'twixt mount and mount 
I flung my manifesto — oh, not heard 
Of course by those who swarmed the scaffoldings. 
But thus I eased me — and a breathless hour 
Made good my wind-tossed challenge. They must go ! 

940 Their claims were canceled. Florence was the source 
Whence sprang the undertaking, and her weal 
Was paramount. I would not see her held 
And throttled by a gang of thugs whose palms 
Were itching but for lucre. They must go ! 

945 No explanation gave I, for he saps 

The argument of force who salves the blow 
With vain palaver; simply — they must go! 

This was a Saturday. On Monday morn 

I had a crew of masons at the Dome 
950 Gathered in secret on the Sunday night 

And pledged to silence till they came to work. 

Before the week was up the game was won; 

My old crestfallen foreman came to beg 

For reinstatement with the other men. 
955 And was I glad to get them back? At wage 

42 



NOON 

Lower than they had got before the fight! 

They 've never bothered since. 

But hist! I hear 

Their voices as we near their height, down thro' 

960 The hatchway floating. Bless 'em, how they sing 

At the blest work like larks amid the blue — 

The thugs I kept from pelf at point of sword ! 

They are my very hands, did they but know. 

Ah, but they need my hand to keep 'em so ! 

I 

965 One more good breathing and we are arrived. 
The air is hereabouts more heavenly pure 
Than even nature's mountain-summits shed 
Upon the jaded spirit. Mary's fane 
Climaxeth to most freshing loveliness 

970 Thus claspt by boundless-breathing heaven. 

At last! 
It's rare to climb a mountain thro' a cave. 
And burst from shelving twilight on a world 
Aglitter ! 

975 And aglitter with such gauds! 

My Donatello, like the sun himself 
For bravery! This golden doublet well 
Becomes thy youth. The basket must be full. 
Or must have been ere gleaming coin like this 

43 



BRUNELLESCHI 

980 Leakt out of it. My cup had not been full 

Hadst thou not come this day to celebrate 

My last up-coming with me. 

Greetings all ! 

Hands all, you make a marvel. Music ne'er 
985 Rang true as ring your trowels. Steel on stone — 

They be my troubadours! 

Among the clouds 

This fabric's marble all immaculate 

Finds fit and friendly home; their milky breasts 
990 Are not more spotless than our shrine that lifts 

Its perforate ecstasy of chiseled snow 

Into the airy zenith, point and spire 

Of symboled sweetness to the sons of men — 

A lily whose frail petals turn aback 
99S In dimpling whorls around the clasped bud 

In rippling splendor of last loveliness, 

One with the heavens. That is my dream of dreams. 

Might I but live to see it blossom forth ! 

But you, dear friends, let them not change my plan ! 
1000 You know the wonders that have been proposed — 
The witless schemes that, since we closed the Dome, 
The know-alls have put forward — I, of course. 
The Dome's imaginer, incapable 

44 



NOON 

Of capping it, tho' all the world beside 
1005 Know how it should be finisht! You recall 
The lady Gaddi's topknot? Milliners, 
March hares, and mountebanks are fecund all 
At capping climaxes of shrine-work. Bah ! 
At heights where genius trembles lest it fall 
loio You'll find all such folk quite at home. That's why. 
In fear of future patchwork when no more 
By sonneteering I can silence them, 
I have forestalled suggestions with cut stone — 
Enough, they say, to build another church 
loij Atop o' this! So be't — a shrine apart 

To yearn and soar unfaltering up the blue! 
All 's done but setting, and that goes apace. 
Thanks to these faithful hands — if faithful kept! 

How lang'rous up the hills the town is lapt — 
1020 In crumbled velvet the long river-plain 

Clothing, and lipping o'er each undulance 

Like rugs rich-piled from morning's ancient looms; 

All generously dyed with smoky hues 

Of ochres and of umbers and of earths 
1025 Riped rusty-ruddy 'neath hoar brooding suns. 

And dull film-bloomed as dusty leopard-skins! 

Never I knew Val d'Arno sweet as now 

45 



BRUNELLESCHI 

When bitter mingles with its sweetness that 
I nevermore may view it thus, above, 

1030 Master, and one with this my mastery. 
Never were hills so lusciously embloomed 
With florent verdancy as these mine eyes — 
Waxt living things endowed with super-sense. 
The all-life sentience that's the architect's — • 

103 s Now breathe and drink into their inmost self 
And clasp with love's embraces to their heart 
In ecstasy of voiceless longing ! Ah ! 
This bitter-sweetness of last times ! Ah me ! 

Look, where I will there leap to life renewed 
1040 Remembrances that lift the tapestry 

Of three score cycles 'fore me. O'er again, 
Within a moment's musing, all my life 
I pass in swift review, as men who drown, 
Adrown in azure. But look where I will 
1045 1 see no task accomplisht — all's to do 

As were I yet a youth untried. Naught save 
My tiny cell in Santa Croce's garth 
Of all the tasks is nested quite, and that 
Least winged of them all. Had I but come 
io;oOf age ere one-and-forty there 'd been time 
To round the region of a full career 

46 



NOON 

And to define its cindlure. Now, I know 

That when my lamps are out there may be some 

Who faithfully will strive not to belie 

1055 The large, serene intent wherewith I wrought; 
That comforts me. But still there'll many be 
Who wilfully or wantonly will work. 
Or ignorantly, to bring all to naught 
My doing and obscure my meaning. They 

1060 Are in my bosom who'll betray my art — 
Well-meaning Frank and others of his ilk. 
And out beyond my circle close of those 
Whose hands are as my living flesh, whose faith 
Will guard my concept as their very own, 

1065 Are countless whom my rimed darts have barbed 
To rankle 'gainst me. They have dogged my steps 
With fangs and yelping, and have clogged my course 
With sand and quagmires of primed argument 
Thro' all my life, till now the hour's at hand 

1070 When I must leave chaotic all my works — 
My realm unwalled, exposed to free attack, 
My song unsung, my visions unfulfilled — 
All, all my tasks loose-ended. Was e'er life 
So full of labors and so void of deed ? 

1075 1 reap not who have sown — my tragedy. 

Perchance all life's. Yet I 'd not change my strife 

47 



BRUNELLESCHI 

Of seed-time for their harvest who ne'er knew 
The sweat of sowing, the sharp appetite 
And savor of the furrow. Furrowed deep 
1080 My Florence is by this right hand of mine. 
And seeded by this brain's broad sowing, lopt 
To the quick sap, and pleacht to fruitfulness. 

Down there below the serried gable-saw 
Of Santa Croce nests my dewy lark, 

1085 My one lone birdling with a trill in flower. 
It harps my heart-strings. Santo Spirito 
Across the river gropes into his own. 
Serene and spacious tho' fragmental still. 
And San Lorenzo, yet a king uncrowned ! 

1090 All, all unfinisht; e'en my palaces. 

That came too late, late autumn's bounty scant. 
To set their fruit ere niggard-nipping frost — 
Children of chilled loins that must be riped 
Orphans on wind-blown leafless branches. All, 

1095 All, all are poniards in me. 

Ah, but most — 
More than mine own, deep biters as they be — 
Rankles that smooth-faced house of Cosimo, 
Dark-veiled this steep noon, usurping where 

1 100 By right my sun-bright portent should have shone 

48 



NOON 

But for one highwayman. With shrewdest steel 
Of smug and smiHng treachery my friend, 
Smug smiling Michelozzo, reacht me once 
Full in the back when I mistook him for 

1 105 My armed support, my friend as yours, and one 
Of our close circle. Him upon my knee 
I 'd dandled, fed good pap of artistry, 
Bred form and feature to, and to the world 
Issued, stampt sound and skilful. You recall 

mo How he was with us ever on the works 

Hanging upon our words; not venturesome 
To have his say, as having naught to speak. 
But drinking ever from your cup and mine 
And cameling for use in desert thirsts. 

1 1 15 Not without talent — oh, I grant you that — 
A gift for gathering and storing up 
Of all that might contribute to his end 
Of making good, will-nilly, with the world ! 
A skilled manipulator, subtly framed 

II 20 To pouch the game, — the more that him no pains 
Preoccupy with the beyond of deed. 
Its furthermost significance and range. 
He's no creative mind, that leaps forthright 
Beyond the oiled smoothness of the known, 

1 1 25 The safe, the rutted road, to regions far, 

49 



BRUNELLESCHI 

Incalculable, challenging, where firsts. 
Firsts only among minds, dare venture. No ! 
Essential seconds are his kind, who sift 
What betters ravish from the void, and do 
1 130 In shelter of past judgments what the firsts 
Conceive, attempt, but fail to bring to end 
Because they stumble up untrodden paths. 

Look there ! — and there ! My Pitti's tortoise-walls 
That creep to being — and his Medici! 

1 1 35 His sudden palace rubbing-of-the-lamp 
Hath safe the plaudits of our yesterdays ; 
My plodder shall go far — tomorrow's praise 
May make his pillow easy. And tho' now 
For years his house hath harbored Medici 

1140 And Pitti frets to see his pile not rooft, 
Yet Medici is Pitti's get. 'Twas I 
That set the pace of pride for Cosimo 
He dared not venture ; far too bold, it seems, 
For craven times and hearts; but from the loins 

1145 Of my great fancy sprang my rival's thought. 
Tempered, and temperate, and fitting home 
To commonplace of life, unriskful. Mine — 
The motive Medici had spurned, rewrought 
In power for Pitti ( stript, alack, of all 

50 



NOON 

1 1 50 Its carven joy of gorgeous heraldry) — 
There, late, too late, it rises; but a torse. 
Yet of a god ! It hath such bravery 
Of bigness and proportion as the Torse, 
Compadt of vigorous antiquity, 

1155 Digged from Colonna's garden t'other day. 
That makes Rome very Greece for majesty. 
I hapt in Rome then at the Pope's behest. 
And with these very eyes beheld rebirth. 
From its forgotten grave, of marble Awe. 

1 1 60 Thence I got word of greatness for the task 
Of princely housing holding then my hand. 
You'll see the Torse's bigness in that work. 

But 'twas before the hour of fate was ripe. 
He wanted no cathedral for his house — 

1165 Not Cosimo! 'Twas so he put me down 
When I before his dazzled eyes deployed. 
In rhythmic pomp of prideful blazonry. 
The plastical presentment of the wish 
That trumpt to empire in his heart of hearts, 

1 1 70 Yet craftily o'erwrought and smothered deep 
'Neath padded coverture of humbleness. 
That thence no cry from vibrant throats outbreathe 
To waken up the people's first alarm. 

51 



BRUNELLESCHI 

As when ere some great rite deep silence broods 

1175 O'er the awed rapture of a twihght throng, 
And every heart halts breathless for a sound 
To thrill the expedtant emptiness; beyond. 
Beyond the pulsate smother of sealed door 
Beyond sealed door, dumb room beyond dumb room, 

1 1 80 The silken-trained processional prepares, 
And lifts the lisping of the quire divine. 
Itself its song's sole audience: so I knew. 
Beyond the unbroke seals of Cosimo 
His mind, and still within his outward front 

1 185 So modest — nay, so mean — the paean proud 
That murmurous prepared a future shout. 
Ominous kin to clank. Intuitive 
I, artist, saw (with eyes which on worn knees 
Searcht inward, pricking ear for that the drum 

1190 Trembled not yet with) what must be, one day. 
The shame of our evolving history 
Not yet in being, and the coiled spring 
Of his heart and of Florence's. That spring 
I made the motive of the majesty 

1 195 I clothed his habitation stiff withal. 

Like cloth-of-gold ashimmer, rich impearled — 
Symbol of sovranty, the mask and show 
Of inward quicks he dared not yet to face 

52 



NOON 

Or venture forth upon ; which he knew not, 
1 200 Perchance, stretcht treacherous as morning glass, 

Tempting steeled feet o'er thinness. My device. 

My rich imagined house interpretive, 

Flasht mirror-wise his hidden longing's face 

On his shockt consciousness. 
1205 "No! No!" he cried, 

"Not such thoughts in my inmost being live — 

All innocent of rule am I at heart ! 

Or if there spring, deep down, a seed of lust 

For princehood, still that shoot must screen its push 
1210 To life, lest Florence ravish my safe place 

Of treasure, and my stirps do deathward. No ! 

Enough, that what of power I have, I have 

All unannounced — the substance, not the face. 

The face hath force to quench young power's fount 
121 5 As Gorgon froze hope's life-blood. Palaces 

Speak loud; I merely want a whispered tale 

Of merchant modesty." 

A whispered tale! 

Ye gods! And 'twas for me to breathe in stone, 
1 220 "This man is but a townsman like us all — 

There is no harm in him — see but this mask — 

Only a modest trader." 

Artistry, 

53 



BRUNELLESCHI 

The soul behind my house interpretive, 

1 225 Betrayed itself so! 

Character, not lies, 
Is my art ! Inner springs of consciousness 
And seedlings of futurity that grope 
Beneath thick-heaped strata of old Adam 

1230 In crannied rocks of self hood, unsusped:, 
'Tis the prime task o' th' architect to voice 
As of the portraitist. Who cares to show 
But the dry husking of his subjedt's soul. 
And surface scorings, is far kin of him 

1235 Who makes but to interpret. 

Centuries 
Of senseless aping of the north — in forms 
Our sunshine ne'er claspt hands w^ith, and whose tongue 
Our tongues took hardly — had seared up, the while 

1240 Thro' the long dark the southland slept, men's sense 
Of the organic framework of all art, 
And most of mine, the builder's. Cosimo 
Spake Florence truly when he askt for lies. 
Asking for art for cover. But you know — 

1245 None better, Donatello — very truth. 

Naught else, truth integral and poignant 'tis 
That lifts art out of earthiness on wings 
That fan the empyrean. And 'twas truth, 

54 



NOON 

Divined by intuitions all divine, 

1250 That Cosimo'd have none of. 

Bottom- wrought — 
As only he w^ho dares behold a soul 
Face outward and to grapple home with it 
Can be wrought to despisal of the craven 

1255 Who safe behind accrete soul-fences still, 
Perforce of custom, will ensconce himself 
And smile content with surfacing — I sneered, 
"Not art then 'tis you want, but subtlety — 
Which is a kinder word for lying ! " 

1260 He, 

Whose wont you know was flabby white, like worms 
You startle fatly lurking under stones. 
Flamed fire-bright at such touching; but cold steel 
From his eyes' scabbard flasht, and flesht me sharp, 

1265 Home to the hilt. "Your subtleties," he hissed, 
" Be for your subtleness, that peeps behind 
The decencies indecently. Have done! 
True art gives cover; 'tis false art betrays, 
False to the purposes behind the veil. 

1 270 All life is built by veiling." 

There it was — 
The secret of his potence, the crass warp 
Wherethro' slid swift the shuttle of his mind, 

55 



BRUNELLESCHI 

Weaving the patterned fabric of deceit 

1275 To cloak his crescence! 

Mad with rage, deep stung 
By th' spiteful venom of his touchiness, 
I crasht my clenched fist thro' the frail thing 
So many months of hotfoot toil had reared, 

1280 And crusht its fragile framework into naught — 
The apple of my eye, for from the deeps 
And hidden places of my second sight 
It had sprung forth, the childing of the void 
Impregnate of my will in potency 

1285 Prophetic ! 

See yon smugness there below — 
Milder and harmlesser than aught the town 
Can show else, for the front of family 
Or pride or power ! Oh, very meek and smooth 

1290 It sits and sits sweet smiling by the way. 

And hawks its heart to the road's beckoning, 

Unnotably pretentious; notablest 

In all the town for pretense, notablest 

As coadjutor of the game he plays, 

1295 Its shy, suave owner, to make good the hold 
That even now grows subtler and more sure 
On the concupiscence of Florence ! 

God! 

56 



NOON 

At that self instant when my talons tore 
1300 The vitals from my Titan, underneath 
A scarlet hood alongside hid, approved. 
The model that had won his heart, the whore 
He chose to house him — Michelozzo's lie. 
Bastardly spawn of kingly seed of mine 
1305 He'd watcht put forth when oft and oft again 
He came to greet me friendly. Oh, you know 
How I despised to hoard my secret; how 
I stood to publish my full power abroad 
For the world's weal, in over-proud contempt, 
1310 Mayhap, of selfish pride — proud pridelessness 
That hath undone me, fool of proudest pride ! 

But silence, proud Filippo ! Hold thy tongue. 
Lest rage bewray thy inward ravenings ! 
Those be old ulcers cleansed by kinder years. 

1 3 1 5 In this keen upward of thin April air 

From whence the boundless ranging of the eye 
Sights large the checkered telltale of the town, 
And, seeing whole, yet sees in sharp detail 
The open riddles of its skyward face 

1320 (For towns, like men, ope heart but to the blue). 
Now, in aloofness of long-cooled thought 
Freshened with friendship for that subtle hand 

57 



BRUNELLESCHI 

Which, while it worms to maw what I would not 
It ere get hold on, knows to bright bright gold, 

1325 And gladden ancient Florence with young zest — 
I see us, Cosimo and me, two types 
Of onwardness, which, meeting in the lists 
Of life, encounter — doughty champions, both. 
Of selfsame hosts of conquest; 'gainst the world 

1330 When pitted, single for advance; yet, coped 
In the blind melee of the jousting-field. 
At odds most rashly. I can see his art — 
The art that comfort gives — a subtle thing 
Of silk-soft tread, whose suave amenity 

133; Sweetens and riches being, brothers man 

And clothes his consciousness with textiles fine 
That fleece his nest with velvet. His the task 
To skirmish far afield and commandeer 
All Capuan luxuries for the long campaign — 

1 340 With risk of Capuan looseness. Cosimo 

Hath made our Florence sweeter on the tooth 
And softer under bone; I thank him for't, 
And for his friendly hand, forgetting soon 
My sooner trespass. But I know that art — 

1345 Our art, which is a thing of mastery — 

Strikes deeper than the surface, rounds a range 
Vaster than scout-purveyors of earth-sweets 

58 



NOON 

Ere dreamed of searching, and proves good its claim 
To larger regions of the soul than they 

1350 Can compass in their vastest view^s. I know 
Great art full-panoplied for war, and armed 
With the bright glaive of light. Not love she bears 
But that sharp sword which leaps to the deep heart 
Of things, and outs love's secrets ; forges on 

1355 Into the vast unknown and cleaves a way 
Thro' grewsome forest and o'er desert wild 
Unto the hold creational, whence spring 
The founts of being, one with Him who wields 
The wand supernal. As the Master saith, 

1360 "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: 
I came not to send peace, but a sword," 
So enters the Eternal into man. 
Whether He come as Christ into the world 
To ransom heart-stuff from assault of sin, 

1365 Or come as force creative, to redeem 

The promise of man's conscience, to lay low 
The beast of grossness, and to raise up heads 
That slumber till His coming — to raise up 
Heights that shall look upon His face and shine 

1370 Bright beacons to the hindmost. 

These be all 
Divine, inexplicable mysteries. 

59 



BRUNELLESCHI 

You know, my friends, we be but instruments, 
No more, we artists ; blades whose tempered steel 

1375 Life sharpens to swift praftice, grinding down 
Their native roughness to such razor-edge 
As slips 'twixt life and death, 'twixt false and true. 
God ! and when hearts are rubbed thus, who shall say 
The anguish of that sharping ? None may guess 

1380 Their midnights, their beseechings, their revolts, 
Their up-in-arms against the law of life 
That grips them fast to loathe and to delight 
In one same a6t, of making and destroying. 
Of striking to the bottom to lay ope 

1385 The sores and grafts of life (oh, horrid tasks 
Of swift red lopping!), to the very bone 
Slashing the growth convention, to the rock 
Clearing debris of ages, so to rear 
A fairer fane of beauty which shall tower, 

1390 A city on a hill, that men shall know 
O'er stretcht-out plains of generations, fair 
As moon- kissed alabaster 'gainst the night — 
A pinnacled, spiring splendor's mystic web 
Of lucent chiseling ! 

139s O Christ, how fine 

Are these. Thy instruments of making, ground 
Betwixt the upper and the lower — blades 

60 



NOON 

Thou sharpenest, or grains (I know not which) 
Of corn Thou bruisest into snowy dust 

1400 To feed the generations — fertilized 

Thro' bruising's death to mystic fruit of life ! 

My figures melt like rivers in a sea 

Of light ashimmer in a rich mirage 

That lures us on across life's boundless sands 

1405 To Edens endlessly removed. 

No more ! 
Now to those hands that wait to know my hest. 
This hour of mine atop flies on apace. 



61 



BRUNELLESCHI 

Part III — Evening 

Time : Sunset and dusk of the same day. 

Scene : 'The slopes below San Miniato, overlooking Florence. 

Persons : Brunelleschi and Donatella. 

Brunelleschi speaks. 



X 



HINE arm, Donate, up these cypress glooms. 

14 lo Tide thou me o'er this deep sward, blanchly sprayed 
And fresh with breathing fragrance; up the swell 
To the sheened harborage of sunset-spilth 
Oozing from cloud-clifF ledges of the west 
To yon bronze pond of even, cypress-walled. 

141 5 Fragile as fingers phantom-thin, those spires 
Of dun grove-sandtuaries lean aloft 
And answer the lush zephyrs' buoyancy. 
More sensitive than seaweeds to the deep's 
Inconstant instance. Beckon they to eve's 

1420 Pale primrose leagues of lucence, " Hither ward. 
In waters of submerging ecstasy 
Transfused, pour down, baptize, anoint us, one 
With everlasting, glorious farewells!" 

63 



BRUNELLESCHI 

Or reads my heart its conscience into theirs, 

1425 That thus I voice them? Sunset and Farewell — 
They walk companionly the shadowy aisles 
Of my heart's cloister, silent of today, 
Reverberant alone of bygone things. 
In memory. . . . 

1430 In memory, O Gift — 

O bounteous gift, not niggard as men say, 
Calling thee Donatello — memory 
Of thee and of thine ancient giving ! This, 
Thine arm that crutcheth me, upbears in sooth 

1435 My heavy spirit more than earthly weight. 

Thou so hast ever done; I thank thee. Words — 
What be they when the heart is full? Wan shapes 
That swoon unrecognizable beneath 
The flood of feeling, not to be reclaimed ! 

1440 And words, to me, thou know'st, have ever been 
But exercise of torture, tearing way 
From sealed treasure-chambers of my soul 
In torment; for my natal tongue — and thine — 
Is one of forms, of symbols of no sound, 

1445 That discourse hold not with the gossip ear 
But with the eye, and thro' the plastic sense. 
Touch in imagination. Pardon thou 
My want of wordy- wise conveyancing ; 

64 



EVENING 

My heart's estates are thine inheritance 

1450 By right unwrit. Thou'st known to read my thought, 
My deep's emotion, in the printless page 
Of wall and bastion, colonnade and tower, 
And ( fullest witness of my soul's desire ) 
My Dome's immortal palimpsest of love. 

145s Corporate art thou in that perfedtness. 
Its resolute assurance, pausing yet 
This side of self-sufficiency ; its swift 
Abandon, which a delicate restraint 
Reins in from recklessness; its vital verve, 

1460 Whose breezy freshness gentle manners make 
Kindly demure — these are thy gifts to it. 
In that thou gavest me thy love to keep. 
And, keeping, I imbibed it till my soul 
Knew not the metes betwixt its own and thine, 

1465 Drowned in affedtion's flood-tide. I know not 
How makers can mature in isolate 
And self-sufficing ownness. Nay, methinks 
Such beings be not as can mount alone. 
Amid the threat and scuffle of the world, 

1470 Up gateways of the day. Companionship — 
In ends akin, in pace along the road. 
In tongue, in taste — is needful to the task. 
I, whom our Florentines count loneliest, _ 

65 



BRUNELLESCHI 

How have I been befriended! Never else 
1475 Had I been borne to take the onward wave 
And win toward harbor — harbor never yet 
Man might attain to, ere the falHng night. 

Night falls apace. More stoutly up these glooms 
Speed ye, my cloddy footsteps, to the space 

1480 Whence are these shadows washt, whence o'er the vale 
Mine eyes may plane as on a level wing. 
Once more — as God looks down upon His world. 
The handiwork He loves so well His eye 
Parts never from it — I must gaze upon 

1485 My masterwork adown these heights removed. 

Now glimmers west-washt silver forth the bronze 
Of dwindling cypresses — the dais'd shrine 
Of far San Miniato, regent hoar. 
Unquestioned, on the headland of the hills 
1490 Up-throned high, whom prostrate valleys yield 
Sweeping obeisance unto. Pearly dews 
Now drench and sanctify that saintly front 
With kisses of wan even. Lo, the flush 
Which blooms his ancience at the pure salute ! 

1495 How oft in days agone have I toiled up 

66 



EVENING 

These highlands in saint pilgrimage to learn 
The lessons of yon ancient ! Thence the lead 
I followed — far, far off — when Cosimo 
Gave me to build anew the rotting fane 

1500 Of San Lorenzo. Santo Spirito 

As well is of his blood, and proudest prince 
Of that great strain. Recall, Donato, hours 
We friended o'er these hills and dreamed the day 
When Florence should awake and know us hers ! 

1505 E'en then, before I knew me architedt, 
I glimpsed the perfedling of motives yet 
Inchoate or abortive in the frame 
Of sire San Miniato. After-years — 
When I at length had crossed my Rubicon, 

1 5 10 Campaigning Romeward — fixt those motives' fate, 
When you and I ranged over the seven hills 
Mid churches of the early faith ; for then 
I knew San Miniato for the van 
Of the far-purposed army of true type, 

1515 Outpost of sane tradition. Mindest thou 
The vineyard-height of the hill Aventine, 
How o'er the brink it beetles of the swirl 
Of ochre Tiber ? On its brow, afar 
And lonely from now haunts of men — sole rest, 

1520 Or well nigh, of the teeming hordes that erst 

67 



BRUNELLESCHI 

Peopled its slopes with proletariate — 

Upon the brow of Aventine is set 

Rome's clearest witness of the morn devout 

Whence rays our day of Christdom : humblemost 

1525 Santa Sabina. There I felt my heart 

Touched to its deepest sense of simpleness 
And childly trust. By beauties unobscured 
Which glorify the shrines of loftier saints. 
That house of quietness makes room for prayer 

1530 Spontaneous, uncompulsed of all spur 
Of splendor or of poignance figurate. 
Its very bareness breeds a broader faith. 
Its rudeness links one with the Manger-born, 
Its pureness with His sacring. Sacrifice 

1535 Is writ upon its gates, in freighted cross 

First-fruit exemplar from the sculptor's tool 
In that rash kind. ("Take thou a bit of wood 
And fashion me that Agony ! " recall'st, 

Donatello?) Me that grandeur took 
1 540 Of self sincerity, and on a day 

1 wrought thereafter. 

Too much, thinkest thou, 
I prate of bygones ? too much base my mind 
On olden wont? Thy hand hath found a means 
1 545 To work its way unhampered, tho' thine art 

68 



EVENING 

Drew milk from ancient udders, as mine own. 
Yet but bethink thee! Sculpture deals with man, 
Life's great convention, ever help at hand 
And scapeless even wouldst thou scape its prop ; 

1550 Limning, not less so. But we architects 
Handle imagined forms, by architects 
Created, our forerunners — timeless kin, 
Voiceless yet partners of the compa<5t. Ours 
Convention with gone fellows, whose built words 

1555 Gain usufruCt of meaning in the mouths 
Of thriftful generations. Therefore art 
In my kind is antiquity re-youthed, 
New-furbisht fresher for its anciency. 
I reverence the past as thou, Donato, 

1560 Worship'st fine human figure, as the type 
Whence thou derivest freedom to essay 
Outward in realms thine only; scrupulous 
To guard essential likeness to the kind 
On pain of losing truth in license. 

1565 Ha! 

Behold! Once from the shades enfranchised, bursts 
A universal glamour of doomed day ! 
Tho' thou art fled, O Lucence, tarrieth 
The spirit of thy splendor, nebulous 

1570 Out airy vasts of scintillance. Unbound, 

69 



BRUNELLESCHI 

The rich ambrosian tresses of the orb 
Departed, riot-streaming, swathe the void 
Abyss illimitable of the heavens — 
Auroral aura of Divinity ! 

1575 On fiery front of Godhead Sinai gazed 

Sole scatheless; us 'tis now vouchsafed to glimpse 
In rapture Godhead's radiant aureole. 
That whelms eve's desert welkin with flood-flame 
Out-glorying Apollo! Ne'er was sight 

1580 So dazzling with long-dalliant gorgeousness' 
Loose-lapsing tendrils and out-shredded films 
Of dissipate liquescent fire, as now 
Zeniths Val d' Arno, sheer-o'erleaping ! 

Oh, 

1585 How is Thy greatness magnified, O Lord, 
By this adumbrance of Thy majesty ! 
The day hath left but trails impalpable 
Of the supernal progress ; yet the cheek 
Blanches and pricks with chill of awed surmise, 

1590 The heart leaps up and halts in ecstasy 
At but this pale remembrance of day's loss, 
As 'twere faint fragrance of an hour forgot 
Wafted adown the airy aisles of dreamland. 

Lo, and the vale ! Outspread beneath the cope 

70 



EVENING 

1595 Of skiey conflagration, how is it 

Beholden to that glory, counter-tin6t 

Responsive to candescent radiance 

And steept in variant empery of hues 

That clothe the footstool of the purple throne 
1600 With throneful splendor! On the velvet breast 

Of earth's unearthly beauty flames one gem, 

Up-founting in distindtion moltenly 

And catching sky-fire on its sole-bright brow. 

Dome that art my skiey part and whole 
1605 Of my sky-yearning, now hath fallen on thee 

The sanctifying ray of Heaven and bred 
Transcendence in thee — this my heart a clod 
That hath brought forth a cloud of glory ! 

Friend, 

1610 Dear friend, this fusion of the world with heaven 
Melteth old hatred to a shamed thing. 
My Child hath found the glamour of the sky 
And shines redeemed; the eleventh hour 
Hath overtaken my harsh-heartedness. 

1615 It shall not be so. Take my testament: 

My Child, that I have borne and given suck. 

And brought most- way to manhood — yea, my Dome- 

1 do bequeath it to mine enemy. 
Whom I have hated. He will cherish it. 

71 



BRUNELLESCHI 

1620 I know him, and have hated him the more 
For that I knew him all unhateable: 
Weak once and human, merely — Michelozzo. 
I cannot climb to Him who on the rock 
Of weakness full-forgiven set His throne, 

1625 Unless unfardeled of that hating. . . . 

Gone! 
E'en as we wonder — gone! As memory 
Evades reludtant, like a breathed-on flame. 
And into darkness wavers and withdraws — 

1630 As young men's visions fade to old men's dreams - 
The day's last lingering splendor now dissolves 
Into dim eve's phantasmal loveliness. 

So hath my wick gone out. My day of toil, 
Donato, it is done. Remaineth naught 

1635 Of the long road of frustrate dreams. 

Shall dawn 
Yet e'er revolve and up the painted east 
Shoot splendor? We have felt these eager years 
The dawning of a loveliness. But night 

1640 Draws close about us, and its touch is cold 

Upon my brow. Mine eyes are dark. My hand 

Bridles no longer to his wonted toil. 

And yet this heart will not be daunted ! Thou, 

72 



EVENING 

Who hast the secret of the secret things 

1645 Divined in the organic principle 
Of character in beauty — thou, and I 
Who have groped with thee up tow^ard Beauty's shrine 
And laid upon her altar all I am — 
We may not doubt the passing of this dark. 

1650 Too deep in the essential core of life 
Is beauty planted to be rooted out 
And cast upon the sateless fires of time. 
If branch be lopt, yet shall new^ shoots put forth, 
More manifold, more strengthened for the knife. 

1655 So we have grown with lopping, well thou know'st — 
Purged by adversity, and circumcised 
In spirit by affliftion. The heart needs 
Some slashing for the perfedt fruit. 

These years 

1660 That have lookt forward to a dawning sweet. 
Upon my tongue they have been bitter. Oh, 
I drained the cup of scorn in those old days 
When laughter and detraftion followed me 
From fangful packs of snarlers, e'er and aye 

1665 Thro' damned years of effort to my end — 
My end that more was Florence's. That cup. 
So long since drunken to the nauseous dregs. 
Hath venomed something at my inmost source 

73 



BRUNELLESCHI 

And sent me tainted down the hill, attaint 

1670 With pungence and acerbity where else 
Had run but sweetness and a madcap rill 
Of hurtless laughter. Tainted streams (what else?) 
Should flow from that outrageous prisonment 
Which gnarled my joints with agues, rheums, and blains, 

167s And shrouded visioned eyes with fetid damps. 
Because, forsooth, assurance I had gained 
At last to make my point against the throng; 
Because, forsooth, no Builders' Guilder I, 
Tho' I was building what their Builders' Guild 

1680 Knew naught of nor could compass! Kindly milk 
Flows not from acrid foster-dugs, as figs 
Grow not on thistles. From my jailing gusht 
The spring of poisoned arrows into rime 
That seared thick skins as acid bites crude dross. 

1685 Ah, God forgive my rancor! I am he 

That is so crusht by wrong that lust bursts out 
For vengeance on the wronger — and the years. 
Upon my tongue they have been bitter. 

Nay, 

1690 Sweet wormwood, surely, since I've had thy faith 
To balm the sore that healeth last of all. 
And then, as core and substance of my life, 
I 've had a task immortal. None may say 

74 



EVENING 

The life is bitter which hath held two bests 

1695 God to Himself hath appanaged — to love 
And to create; two bests that be but one, 
For at the last to love is to create. 
And to create? What is it but to love? 
In irised indistinctness all their lines 

1 700 Swim mystical about the void of night, 
Merging in one thro' manifest diverse. 
Yea, I have loved the love of loneliness. 
Out-yearning worldwards in default of love 
To pour my manhood unto, all my man 

1705 Making for making. From my loins have leapt 
A progeny of vital creatures — thoughts 
That I have builded into loveliness. 
Which, once brought forth, have life intrinsical. 
Those children of the generative mind, 

1710 We know not whither they may take their way. 

Why live, where house, whom spouse, how procreate. 
When shuffle off; scarce launcht, self-masters. Would 
I might foreknow what time doth keep for them. 
Those offspring mine ! Will they be fruitful seed ? . . . 

171 5 Apace the dusk advances into gloom. 

While we have watcht, adown the darkening slopes 
The day hath drained in a steady stream, 

IS 



BRUNELLESCHI 

Withdrawing stealthily thro' cypress isles 
Uplift from forth its current. Now the flood 

1720 Of tardy-truant laggard light hath dropt 
And leveled, gathered in the serpenting 
Pearl-silver pool of Arno. Only there 
All radiant wanderers have rendezvous' d 
In glassy splendor. Out into the west 

1725 Light lies and languishes in liquid sleep. 

O peachblow bloom of Florence ! How thy heart 
Is mirrored in that lambence, which flows on 
Into unwot-of realms of the west's day, 
Revolving evermore! Thy soul hath burst 

1730 And burgeoned riotously on the brave 

Meander-margents of this westward stream. 
As 'twere the stem of time and thou the bloom 
That glads its nakedness. Well they thee called 
Who from the lavish garden of all tongues 

173s Sought out the richest treasuries, bee-wise. 
And culled the deathless honey of thy name. 
Thy soul is one with loveliness, thy name 
But one with that it nameth — gentle breath 
That wafts the sweetness of all blossoming 

i74oAboon the dusty wayside. 

Florentine ! 

76 



EVENING 

How sing the heart-strings to the kindling warmth 
Of that flute-call's full music ! Florentine ! 
'Tis thou and I, Donato, summoneth 

1745 That blossom-soft, high clarion; and he 

Whose name — akin to thine, the giving-one — 

Is as a pearl of price, whose form is lost 

In dissolution in the noble grape 

Of "Florentine," so one leap o'er our lips 

1750 That living name and Dante's! Thence 'tis ours 
To be the fellows of immortal song. 
And to breathe in song's vital spirit. He, 
Who wove the garden-sweetness of all love 
Into one awsome triune universe 

1755 Of everlasting being, hath laid hand 

Upon our brows who spring from selfsame soil, 
And breathed into our mere mortality 
A breath immortal. Ours to live and die 
More greatly for his greatness, and more sweet 

1760 For that his fragrance hath embosomed sense 
In spirit largeness. 

O thou Florentine! 
Essential, adjunct, and epitome — 
Stem, branch, and blossom — of our consciousness! 

1765 Behold I now thy form upon the marge 

Of glamourous Arno, dreaming in the gloam ? 

77 



BRUNELLESCHI 

Or is it she whom I have loved and served — 
She whom I have espoused — whom in my breast 
I wear, the cresting blossom of the world, 

1770 Time's fragrant childling, Florence? Be it thou 
Or she — thou, sweetest voice of deathlessness, 
Or she, whom thy sweet voice hath deathless made- 
One only soul I witness, evermore 
Inseparate. Snatch thou me up to thee, 

1775 Lift thou my spirit till't be one with thine 
And thou become the essence of my soul 
As of our city ! Nay, I am but one 
With thee; I lipt thy measures with her milk 
Who bare me, and my self is saturate 

1780 With thy flood-spirit. In my work of works — 
Yonder up-standing quickened thing of clay — 
There throbs the life-blood of thy mightiness 
Somehow thro' me anew made manifest. 
From thee derivative, from thee who sprang 

1785 From the essential pregnance Florence is 

Of power and sweetness. Thine and hers it is. 
That greatness I have fathered, now in night 
Still gleaming — luminous, of all the vale, 
Alone. From out the shrouded west some ray 

1790 Inscrutably still penetrates the dark 

And touches to long-lingering rose the Dome, 

78 



EVENING 

Informing, as a lamp its glow, that globe 
With warmth and lambency. 

Oh, may it be 

1795 A shining for the age to come, the flame 
Of a vast-regioned cresset, beaconing 
The minds that are my fellows yet-to-be 
Up darksome trails of travail to the height 
Where shrines, approachable, the Loveliness 

1800 Eternal. May my art contribute to. 

And bring down nearer to men's bungling hands, 
The art of the divine Artificer 
Wherein are all things as the light of day, 
Tho' darkly now we see as in a glass. 

1805 In sudden vision I behold the hour 

When art shall speak untrammeled and its words 
Shall arrow straight unto their goal, nor mist 
Of indirection but obscure the sense 
That lies behind their music. May my light, 

1 8 10 Tho' be't but darkness, kindle on and on 
Into the night and usher in a morn 
When architecture shall be one with truth. 
Truth one with power, and power with constancy ! 

Yet I bethink me in my heart of hearts 
1815 That truth is one with trial. I have set 

79 



BRUNELLESCHI 

My hand unto a task whereof not all 

I might fulfil and live, for so not man 

Were I, but He who made man in His image — 

Endowed with heavenward power to look above 

1820 But ever impotent to reach the height. 

For the allotted three score years and ten — 
Or such of them as answered — I 've essayed 
To climb the summit of the centuries 
And orb their life in skiey stone ! And now 

1825 From off my height unfinisht, unattained, 
I step into the starry ambience 
And mystery of evening skies. . . . 

The Dome ! 
Behold ! While we are musing, from the east 

1830 Hath swum the glamour of the lesser light 
And rimed its lamp with silver. I will take 
This radiance as an augury. Farewell ! 
Let us go down. Donate, while the moon 
Plays Dian to Endymion, my Dome, 

1835 Kissing his sleep to dreams of loveliness 
That shall fulfil all longing ! 

Gift, thine arm. . . 



80 



NOTES 

The full name of Brunelleschi ( 1377-1446) was Filippo di 
Ser Brunellesco Lapi. Brunelleschi, the name by which he is 
generally known, was the family name of his paternal grand- 
mother. 

Line 4 

Andrea di Lazzaro de' Cavalcanti ( 141 2-1462 ), called, from 
his birthplace, Buggiano. He was a sculptor, a pupil of Dona- 
tello, and a close friend and protege of Brunelleschi, who 
adopted him as a son. 

Line 24 'Tis a beauty such, methinks, 

As none but he who made can utterly 
Delight in ! 

This is a reference to the following lines of Dante : 

La bellezza ch' io vidi, si trasmoda 

Non pur di la da noi, ma certo io credo 
Che solo il Suo Fattor tutta la goda. 

Paradiso: Canto XXX, lines 19-21. 

Vasari tells us that Brunelleschi was a profound admirer of 
Dante, whose lines were ever on his lips. Several paraphrases 
are mentioned hereafter in these notes; but it is unnecessary, 
and indeed impossible, to identify all of the oblique allusions 
with which the text is sown. Brunelleschi gives full credit in 
his own words to the Florentine for the debt he, and all men, 
owe him. (See line 1762 et seq.) 

83 



NOTES 

Line z6 

Arnolfo di Cambio, or di Lapo, (i 232-1301) was the origi- 
nal architedt of the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, which 
was founded in 1294. Arnolfo's father's name was Lapo, while 
Lapi was the family name of Brunelleschi, whose father was 
Ser Brunellesco di Lippo Lapi. This suggests a possible family 
relationship, all the more probable as Vasari tells us that the 
above Ser Brunellesco's grandfather was called Cambio. Lapi 
was, however, one of the most common of all Florentine names. 

Line 55 There hath art 

Touched the high term of beauty. 

Brunelleschi has in mind the following lines of Dante : 

Ma or convien che il mio seguir desista 
Piu dietro a sua bellezza, poetando. 
Come air ultimo suo ciascuno artista. 

Paradiso: Canto XXX, lines 31-33. 
Line 66 

Timid that profile as it budded first 

Arnolfo's original plan, which was modified after his death 
by his successors, included an odilagonal dome of masonry, but 
much lower in profile than as executed later by Brunelleschi ; 
and, furthermore, without the high drum or wall which lifts 
the dome proper some twenty-five feet above the top of the 
nave walls. The initial idea of the dome, therefore, we owe to 
Arnolfo; its freedom, majesty, and beauty, as well as the skill 
of its execution, to Brunelleschi. 
Line 70 ' 

Those close maestri. 

The general conduct of the construdlion of the cathedral was 
in the hands of the maestri (masters) of the Opera del Duomo 
(Board of Works of the Cathedral). 

84 



NOTES 

Line 162 

Unfinisht yet and webbed with scantling gold 

The main strufture of the dome proper had been completed 
and the cathedral consecrated in 1436, ten years before Bru- 
nelleschi speaks ; the lantern, of white marble, was begun seven 
years later, only three years before the architedt's death, in 
1446, and not finished till 1462, under Michelozzo. 

Line 189 

'Tis thou I would have make my monument; 

The most interesting and valuable work of Andrea's which 
has come down to us is the circular wall-tablet in relief,.to 
Brunelleschi's memory — admirable in execution, and most 
convincing as a portrait — which is placed high on the south 
wall of the cathedral just inside the southwest entrance. 

Line z i 8 

Thou know'st my model for Lorenzo's doors ; 

Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378-1455), the sculptor. The baptistry 
doors which were the subjed: of the competition in 1401 are 
those on the south side, corresponding in general charafter 
with the north doors already completed in 1336 by Andrea 
Pisano. On completion, after more than twenty years of labor, 
Ghiberti's doors were considered so fine that he was commis- 
sioned to execute the east doors as well ; and it was these, 
even finer than the south doors, which Michelangelo declared 
worthy to be the gates of Paradise. These occupied Ghiberti 
more than a quarter of a century, and were his most important 
work. 

Line 243 

Giotto di Bondone ( 1276-1337), like Arnolfo and Brunel- 
leschi, died before the completion of his great architedtural 

85 



NOTES 

work. The tower, which he had begun in 1334, was completed 
in 1387. Yet "completed" is hardly the word to use, for 
Giotto's plan contemplated a high spire above the present 
cornice, which has never been executed, though the prepara- 
tions for it are to be seen in their unfinished state under the 
supposedly temporary roof of the tower. 

Line 325 

Our two — Lorenzo's and my own — stood out 

These two models in bronze, for a panel illustrating the 
Sacrifice of Isaac, are now hung side by side in the Bargello. 
There are considerable differences in merit as to composition, 
which are in Ghiberti's favor ; but the most striking superi- 
ority of his bronze is in its spiritual quality. His Abraham is 
loth to strike, while Brunelleschi's goes vigorously to work, 
"hot to the deed, e'en odious" (see line 338). 

Line 365 

Donatello (Donato di Niccolo di Betto Bardi, 1386-1466), 
the great sculptor, was Brunelleschi's stanchest friend till death. 

Line 368 

Masaccio (Tommaso di Ser Giovanni Guidi da Castel San 
Giovanni, 1401-1428), who died at the early age of twenty- 
seven, had already worked a revolution in painting. His fres- 
coes in the Brancacci chapel in the church of Santa Maria del 
Carmine are perhaps the finest of his works that remain to 
us. These and others were the models from which Michel- 
angelo and Raphael, and in fad most of the later painters of 
the Renaissance, studied and formed their style. 

Line 436 

In desert purlieus of the shrunken town 

At the end of the middle ages Rome had shrunk to a small 

86 



NOTES 

town. For three-quarters of a century before Brunelleschi's 
time, the city was not even the papal capital, the popes having 
established their court at Avignon, whence they returned to 
Rome the year of Brunelleschi's birth, 1377. The city then 
went through a period of more than two score years of schism 
and anarchy hardly less, perhaps more, disastrous than abso- 
lute desertion. The latter half of this period was the time of 
Brunelleschi's life there. 

I Line 448 How 'twas I lived, 

Nothing is known, save in the most general way, of Brunel- 
leschi's life in Rome ; but in visiting the city it is a most inter- 
esting and stimulating experience to center one's mind, for 
a time, on what still exists there that was a part of Brunelles- 
chi's own knowledge. It is astonishing how fully and clearly 
the charader of the town, as he must have known it, may still 
be made to emerge. 

Line 469 Round me cattle browsed 

The Forum, in mediaeval and Renaissance times, was quite 
outside the inhabited part of the town, in the fields, and was 
known as "the cow-pasture" (campo vaccina). 

Line 476 giants, half their height 

Awful up-turreting. 

An allusion to Dante's lines : 
Pero che, come in su la cerchia tonda 

Montereggion di torri si corona, 

Cosi la proda che il pozzo circonda, 
Torreggiavan di mezza la persona 

Gli orribili giganti, cui minaccia 

Giove del cielo ancora, quando tuona. 

Inferno: Canto XXXI, lines 40-45. 

87 



NOTES 

Line 505 

The Amphitheater's o'erwhelming sweep 

The Amphitheater was far more complete in Brunelleschi's 
time than now. It was used all through the Renaissance as a 
quarry whence the materials were obtained for building the pal- 
aces which sprang up soon after the return of the papal court. 

Line 539 the ends of earth 

Together all were gathered up within 
One fascicle of governance, 

See Dante's lines : 

Poi, presso al tempo che tutto il ciel voile 
Ridur lo mondo a suo modo sereno, 
Cesare, per voler di Roma, il tolle. 

Paradiso : Canto VI, lines 55-57. 

Line 546 pagan priests 

Did sandtify that temple to gods seven 

The Pantheon was dedicated originally to Saturn, Jupiter, 
Mercury, Apollo, Diana, Venus and Mars. 

Line 709 the great refusal 

See Dante's lines : 

Vidi e conobbi I'ombra di colui 
Che fece per viltate il gran rifiuto. 

Inferno: Canto III, lines 59-60. 
Line 758 

Reversing in perspedlive, vanisht down 

Brunelleschi did much to perfedt, if he did not a6tually in- 
vent, a method of perspective drawing, which until his time 
had been little used. In particular he taught his method to 
Masaccio, who profited greatly by it. 

88 



NOTES 

L 

Line 949 

I had a crew of masons at the Dome 
Gathered in secret 

Vasari says these masons were not Florentines, but Lom- 
bards. 

Line 978 The basket must be full, 

Donatello had the amiable habit of keeping his money in 
an open basket which hung in his workroom, and any friend 
in need might help himself. 
Line 994 

A lily whose frail petals turn aback 

The lily figured on the coat of arms of Florence, whence 
the cathedral took its name of Santa Maria del Fiore (of the 
flower). 
Line 1006 

The lady Gaddi's topknot? 

This lady of the Gaddi fimily was only one of many who 
made Brunelleschi's life miserable by their pertinacious and 
conceited advocacy of designs by themselves, to replace the 
exquisite conception of the archited:. 
Line 1047 

My tiny cell in Santa Croce's garth 

The Capella, or Chapel, of the Pazzi family, ereded by Bru- 
nelleschi about 1430. The entrance is from the cloister. 
Line 1061 

Well-meaning Frank 

Francesco della Luna, one of Brunelleschi's pupils and 
assistants, to whom several of his designs were entrusted for 
execution. Among these was the Spedale degli Innocenti, 

89 



NOTES 

which is not infrequently called the first work of Renaissance 
architecture, having been begun about 1419. Francesco had it 
in charge after 1427, and made certain changes in the design 
during the course of construction which enraged Brunelleschi 
when he perceived them, though friendly relations continued. 

Line 1086 

The church of Santo Spirito, usually regarded as Brunelles- 
chi's masterpiece, was begun in 1436, but not finished until 
1482, thirty-six years after the architect's death, the work hav- 
ing been carried on under the direction of several successive 
superintendents. 

Line 1089 

The church of San Lorenzo, the reconstruction of which 
under Brunelleschi was begun in 1425, still lacked its dome 
at Brunelleschi's death. 

Line 1098 

Rankles that smooth-faced house of Cosimo, 

Cosimo de' Medici ( 1389-1464) had a model prepared for 
his house by Brunelleschi, but rejeCted it on account of its size 
and splendor, preferring the more modest design of Miche- 
lozzo, though it is said he afterward regretted his choice. 

Line i 103 

Michelozzo ( Bartolommeo di Gherardo di Michelozzo 
Michelozzi, 1396-1472), second only to Brunelleschi in archi- 
tecture among the latter's contemporaries. Michelozzo was 
associated as architect with Donatello in many undertakings. 
Line 1133 

Luca Pitti wished to surpass his powerful rival, Cosimo de' 
Medici, in the splendor of his palace, with which desire 
Brunelleschi worked in full sympathy. Before completing his 

90 



NOTES 

house, however, Pitti lost his wealth and power ; and the pal- 
ace eventually became the property and official residence of 
the Medici family, thus justifying our archited's intuitions. 

Line 1153 the Torse, 

Compadt of vigorous antiquity, 
Digged from Colonna's garden t'other day, 

The fragment of antique Greek sculpture, now known as 
the Torso of the Vatican, was unearthed from the Colonna 
gardens in Rome not long before 1440. About this period 
Pope Eugene IV (1431-1447) requested Cosimo de' Medici to 
send an architect to him at Rome. Cosimo sent Brunelleschi, 
saying that such was his greatness that " he would undertake 
to move the world." The Pope was astonished at Brunelles- 
chi's insignificant appearance. " So you can move the world ? " 
"Verily, an you but furnish me a fulcrum for my lever! " 

Line iz6i 

Whose wont you know was flabby white, like worms 

The most convincing portrait of Cosimo, in which the pale, 
unwholesome look is emphasized, is part of Benozzo Gozzoli's 
mural paintings in the private chapel of the Medici ( now the 
Riccardi) Palace. 

Line 1482 as God looks down upon His world. 

The handiwork He loves so well His eye 
Parts never from it — 

The reference is to the following passage from Dante: 

E li comincia a vagheggiar neli' arte 
Di quel Maestro che dentro a se 1' ama 
Tanto, che mai da lei 1' occhio non parte. 

Paradiso : Canto X, lines 10-12. 

91 



NOTES 

Line 1488 

The church of San Miniato al Monte, built in the eleventh 
century, is one of the finest examples of the Romanesque, or, 
one might say, early Christian, basilica type north of Rome. 

Line 1498 when Cosimo 

Gave me to build anew the rotting fane 
Of San Lorenzo. 

Striftly speaking, it was Giovanni de' Medici, Cosimo's 
father, who had originally set Brunelleschi to work at San 
Lorenzo, to rebuild the sacristy. On the death of Giovanni, 
however, in 1429, Cosimo (in conjunction with several other 
donors ) continued and extended the employment to include 
the entire reconstruction of the church. Both San Lorenzo 
and Santo Spirito are strongly reminiscent of the basilica type 
of church. 

Line 1525 

The church of Santa Sabina was built about 425, and is, of 
all the early Christian basilicas, the least changed from its 
original charafter. Its ancient doors still retain their primitive 
carvings, among which is what is reputed to be the oldest 
extant crucifixion. 

Line 1537 " Take thou a bit of wood 

And fashion me that Agony ! " 

When Donatello was a boy he carved a crucifix of wood 
which now hangs in Santa Croce. Brunelleschi, on seeing it, 
exclaimed that he had put a clown on the cross. Deeply cha- 
grined, Donatello cried, "Take wood and carve one for your- 
self, then ! " Brunelleschi accepted the challenge, and presently 
asked Donatello in to see his crucifix, having meanwhile kept 
his work a secret. Donatello was completely overcome with 

92 



NOTES 

the beauty of his friend's achievement, which is now in San 
Lorenzo. 

Line 1685 I am he 

That is so crusht by wrong that lust bursts out 
For vengeance on the wronger — 

See Dante's lines : 

Ed e chi per ingiuria par ch' adonti 
Si, che si fa della vendetta ghiotto; 
E tal convien che il male altrui impronti. 

PuRGATORio : Canto XVII, lines 121-123. 
Line 1690 

Sweet wormwood, 

See Dante's words : 

A ber lo dolce assenzio de' martiri 

PuRGATORio: Canto XXIII, line 86. 
Line 1691 

To balm the sore that healeth last of all. 
See Dante's lines : 

E questo modo credo che lor basti 

Per tutto il tempo che il foco gli abbrucia : 
Con tal cura convien, con cotai pasti 

Che la piaga dassezzo si ricucia. 

PuRGATORio: Canto XXV, lines 136-139. 



93 



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